Pain Killers Treatment and Rehab

Pain Killers Info

According to an article by the BBC, the use of painkillers has more than doubled in the last 15 years, with research showing that 1 in 20 Brits has a prescription for addictive opioid painkillers such as Tramadol and Codeine. This research also found that GPs were guilty of prescribing painkillers for periods longer than necessary, leading to thousands of patients accidentally becoming addicted to painkillers.

A substance abuser who shared her addiction story explained that she was prescribed codeine for stress-related headaches. The medicine worked so well, she felt like she could handle life only when she was on codeine. According to addiction expert Daniel Gerrard, government attitude and the prescribing habits of GPs have to change to conquer the problem.

A drug counsellor informed the BBC that painkiller abuse was fueled by the NHS. A former addicted stated that it was easy to get a prescription for tramadol because GPs didn’t ask too many questions, resulting in drug addicts being created by the NHS. Data from NHS Digital shows that 23.8 million opioid prescriptions was written for Brits in 2017. Poor communities or areas populated by elderly citizens have the highest prescribing rates.

Painkiller Treatment and Rehab

Life expectancy in the US has dropped by for two consecutive years. The result of years of over-prescription and addiction to painkillers. According to a representative of the National Centre for Health Statistics, the major factor is the increase in fatalities from drug overdoses.

Long-term use of prescription painkillers increased the risk of abuse whilst diminishing any benefits the patient could derive from the medicine. Data from a wide NHS study of patients in England found that opioid painkillers were the most prescribed drugs. A balance needs to be established between ensuring proper access to medicines to treat disorders, relieve pain, and avoid prescriptions that lead to substance dependence.

If you’re addicted to painkillers such as fentanyl or percocet, you’ll require addiction treatment to help you live a normal life again. Rehab centres are equipped with doctors, nurses and clinicians who specialise in addiction, and can help you quit substance abuse using some of the most innovative techniques in addiction treatment. Drug rehab options include inpatient treatment programmes and outpatient treatment.

Painkiller Addiction Treatment – What is it?

Addiction is characterised by a lack of control over substance abuse and compulsive use when you know the negative consequences. Opiate painkillers and other powerful medications that impactthe central nervous system have a high potential for abuse. Most of these drugs are intended for short-term use and when patients take them for longer than was originally prescribed, they build up a tolerance and, over time, become dependent on painkillers.

Painkillers work by binding themselves to pain receptors in the spinal cord and brain to relieve pain. They are mostly prescribed to patients who experience chronic pain, cancer patients, postoperative surgery pain and severe muscle or bone injury. Popular medications include Percocet, Oxycodone, Morphine, Fentanyl, Vicodin, Codeine and Tramadol.

Painkiller addiction treatment is required to remove harmful toxins from your body, help you understand your addiction, and teach you coping skills that improve your chances of living a substance-free life. Treatment consists of detoxification, inpatient treatment, outpatient treatment,behavioural therapies, relapse prevention planning, and aftercare.

Treatment for Painkiller Addiction is a Necessity

Narcotic painkillers carry a high risk for abuse and addiction. They are dangerous and harmful when abused and can lead to accidental harm and other medical hazards. Crushing and injecting painkillers increases the risk of heart attack and infectious diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis. Painkillers prevent the reuptake of GABA chemicals in the brain, such as dopamine, that control feelings of pleasure, relaxation and euphoria.

Professional treatment is your best chance at getting better. Some withdrawal side effects can be dangerous if you try to detox at home. Medical personnel are experienced and capable of treating painkiller addiction. They reduce the risk of treatment by conducting detox in a safe and secure environment where they can supervise the detox process.

When you try to detox at home, you’re not equipped with the vital skills to prevent a relapse or handle triggers. Psychotherapists prevent relapse by helping you identify your triggers and learning coping skills to handle them in a positive way.

Therapy and Specialized Treatment Options

Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT): When combined with psychotherapy, medication-assisted treatment is effective in addressing both physical and psychological aspects of addiction. Medications include:

Methadone to reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms.

Buprenorphine to partially activate the brain’s opioid receptors and prevent overdose or the feeling of euphoria associated with substance abuse.

12-step Programmes and SMART Recovery: Community-based support groups such as Narcotic Anonymous and SMART Recovery are great places to discuss your addiction and learn practical coping techniques from the shared experiences of other recovering addicts. The major difference is that NA ascribes healing to a superior being while SMART Recovery doesn’t.

Inpatient Rehab and Outpatient Rehab for Painkiller Addiction

Inpatient rehabs are addiction treatment programmes where you live in a therapeutic community for the duration of your treatment. It might seem daunting at first, but this treatment option is the most successful. Medical professionals provide 24/7 addiction treatment to ensure you have access to emergency care whenever you need it. Education and 12-steps groups are at the core of treatment.

Outpatient rehabcentres are designed for individuals who can’t take time off work or school to attend rehab fulltime. If you have a mild addiction or you’re a highly functioning addict, you’ll benefit from treatment in this setting. While it is not as disciplined or structured as inpatient care, it can still be successful if you’re committed to treatment and motivated to maintain abstinence from painkillers.

The facilities at luxury rehab are on par with a 5-star holiday resort, complete with idyllic locations to provide a serene environment and alternative therapy models that enhance healing and recovery.

What Happens During Treatment?

The first stage is the intake process, where a medical doctor and drug counsellor will evaluate you to determine the extent of your addiction. They’ll ask questions about your medical history, substance abuse history, and check for co-occurring disorders that will be addressed during treatment. After intake, you proceed to the detox facility. Here, the tapering technique is used to gradually reduce your regular dose of painkillers until all drugs have left your body.

Once you’re physically stabilised, you’ll transition to rehab where the real work begins. You’ll work with a team of psychotherapists to better understand your addiction, identify triggers and learn coping skills for dealing with triggers without abusing painkillers.

Private Painkiller Rehabs and Confidentiality

Painkiller rehabilitation centres are confidential. Treatment only works if you fully participate in sessions and if you’re completely honest about your history of substance abuse. Trust is an essential element of treatment because you’ll have to be vulnerable and open up about the events that led to your substance abuse.

Administrators protect the details and privacy of all patients by ensuring that only approved personnel, who are directly involved in your treatment, can view your details. You’ll be provided with a copy of the confidentiality agreement after the intake process to ensure you understand your rights as a patient.

Individual and Group Therapy

Both individual and group therapy are geared towards improving treatment outcome. Individualised therapy is a one-on-one talk therapy where you’re involved in sessions alone with your therapist. During these sessions, you’ll learn to understand your addiction, identify triggers and learn coping skills. In group therapy, sessions are led by a certified drug counsellor and involve several recovering addicts.

Group therapy is a great place to make new sober friends, and receive support and feedback whilst in recovery. The information you learn in the sessions will help you avoid triggers and prevent relapse.

A synopsis of treatment programmes and their lengths

Detox: The detoxification process encompasses both pharmacology and psychotherapy. Withdrawal symptoms are uncomfortable, but not deadly, when you receive treatment at a medically supervised facility. There is no predetermined timeline for the detox process, but it usually lasts five to seven days in most individuals. Protracted withdrawal symptoms, such as depression and insomnia, might linger for up to a month and require behavioural therapies to treat.

Inpatient treatment:A short-term inpatient stay lasts 28-30 days. This program is recommended if you have a mild addiction to painkillers or you’ve recently developed a tolerance for opioids. Long-term rehab stays range from two months, three months and up to six months. These are recommended if you have co-occurring disorders, a history of substance abuse, and/or a medical condition that should be addressed in treatment.

Outpatient rehab: This rehab lasts 10-16 weeks and is recommended for high functioning addicts whose addiction hasn’t impacted too negatively on their work or personal life. Those who have a mild addiction, can’t afford inpatient treatment, or have responsibilities that prevent them from staying in rehab fulltime can receive treatment as outpatients.

Detoxing from Painkillers- All you Need to Know

When you’re prescribed painkillers, your doctor will advise you on the importance of following their instructions. The danger of self-medicating or abusing painkillers is that you quickly build up a tolerance to your medication. At this stage, the original dose is not effective and you need higher doses to feel the same effect. Within a few weeks, you’ve developed a dependence on opioids and you will experience withdrawal symptoms when you try to quit.

Withdrawal symptoms and detox can be effectively managed at a medically-supervised detox facility where doctors and care professionals supervise the detox process to prevent the onset of painful withdrawal symptoms and ensure you remain safe throughout the detox process.

Common symptoms of painkiller withdrawal include:

Intense cravings

Muscle cramping

Depression

Nausea

Anxiety

Agitation

Early withdrawal symptoms: Early symptoms manifest within six to twelve hours after your last dose, and may last two days for longer-acting medicines. Symptoms include muscle pain, teary eyes, a runny nose, racing heart, hypertension, fever, sleeping difficulty, and anxiety.

Acute withdrawal symptoms: This is the stage where most of the intense withdrawal symptoms occur. It peaks on the third day after your last dose and lasts up to a week in most individuals. Symptoms include diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting, cravings, gastrointestinal pain, depression and insomnia.

Late withdrawal symptoms: While most symptoms diminish after a week, some psychological symptoms such as cravings, depression, mood swings, and anxiety might persist for a few months. You’ll need psychotherapy to treat these symptoms.

Psychological Therapy

Cognitive BehaviouralTherapy

The brain is a such a powerful organ that science is still trying to understand the different applications it can do. Your hidden thoughts and the power of your mind can trap you in a vicious cycle of substance abuse or it can help you escape. Cognitive BehaviouralTherapy taps into the power of the mind to change negative thought patterns, behaviour and emotions that encourage addictive behaviour.

During your sessions, you’ll work with your therapist to identify all the negative behaviours and triggers that might cause you to relapse after treatment and learn to change them for positive thoughts and emotions that encourage abstinence.

Motivational Interviewing

It might sound like a routine motivational speech given to addicts in treatment but Motivational Interviewing is more than that. It is a therapy technique that has been successful in treating alcoholism and substance use disorder. It speaks to the part of your personality that denies the existence of painkiller abuse and works to remove ambivalence towards treatment.

Therapy sessions provide an opportunity for your therapist to learn more about you through conversation. This allows your therapist to encourage you to change negative behaviour for a positive attitude. You might be distracted or weighed down by past choices you’ve made and Motivational Therapy helps you move forward by looking towards the future.

Paying for Painkiller Addiction Treatment

Once you’ve determined that you need addiction treatment, your next step is to consider payment options. Most insurance companies will cover full or partial payment cost of painkiller rehab because it is recognised in the DMV as a substance use disorder.

If you don’t have insurance, you could ask for financial support from loved ones, source the funds online through crowdfunding, apply for a government loan via the NHS

take out a bank loan or work out a payment plan with the financier of the rehab centre. The cost of treatment varies depending on the location, size, speciality, number of therapy techniques, staff to patient ratio, and type of rehab.

Standard rehab programmes in the UK start from £1,000 a week and £5,000 a month. Luxury and executive rehab programmes usually cost around £10,000 a week and up to £50,000 a month.

Ending Your Painkiller Treatment – When and Why

The most important reason why you attend a rehab program is that you want to improve your chances of never abusing drugs again. Leaving treatment early means that you’ve not been discharged by your medical team and you’re not ready to re-enter society.

You might feel like you’ve learned everything you need within two weeks or you’ve gained the required skills to navigate life in your local community. Sadly, you’re most likely to relapse when faced with triggers. When you relapse, your brain, which was just starting to learn how to function without drugs, is back on the hook and this time it’ll be harder to complete treatment or reverse the effects of addiction.

Completing addiction treatment provides the tools to maintain abstinence from illicit substances, and, if a relapse occurs, you know how to regain your abstinence without sliding further into the hole.

Post-Rehabilitation Support

Treatment doesn’t end with rehab. Aftercare for painkiller addicts is the most important part of treatment because it helps you maintain lifelong abstinence from painkillers. Aftercare encompasses all the follow-up care you can receive after treatment. This includes medications to cope with cravings, therapy sessions, support group meetings, sober living facilities, peer support, and relapse prevention strategy.

The Risk of Relapse for Painkiller Addicts

Painkiller abuse is a serious problem in most western countries. Even with methadone maintenance medication, half of those in recovery continue to abuse prescription painkillers after treatment. Recovering from addiction to painkillers is not easy and some drugs are harder to quit than others. As devastating as it seems, relapse is a common occurrence in the recovery journey.

According to research, 80% of recovering addicts relapse within 30 days of receiving addiction treatment because they are still learning to cope with triggers and cravings. The cause of relapse is based on the potency of the substance you abuse, environmental factors, competency of treatment, and the availability of aftercare upon discharge from a rehab facility.

A few tips to guide you in your relapse prevention planning include:

Eating nutritious meals and exercising

Identifying all triggers that might cause a relapse

Using what you learned in rehab to cope with triggers when they come up

Joining a support group and attending meetings religiously

Deleting the phone numbers of all your old contacts that encouraged you to use drugs, including your dealer

Improving communication skills by making new friends in rehab.

Working on building a healthy relationship with your family and friends

Considering a sober living facility if you or your therapist feel you’re not ready to transition fully into society

Family Therapy

In some cases, your family might have contributed to your addiction. Successful treatment incorporates the family unit. Family therapy targets the group as a unit, not just the individual. It is based on the belief that the family shares a unique bond, and by tweaking one aspect of the system, other components that impact on the outcome of treatment will be affected. Benefits of family therapy include:

Helping family members to gain self-care interventions that improve their physical and mental wellbeing

Teaching younger members of the family that substance abuse is not an acceptable behaviour

Helping family members identify and learn to avoid enabling behaviours that might lead to a relapse

Improving communication among family members

Seek Help

You can seek advice from your prescribing doctor or call an addiction helpline. Hospitals can provide detox services but they are not as effective as rehab centres. A 2017 study found that opioid addicts who didn’t receive treatment at a rehab clinic are twice as likely to die than those who did. Psychotherapy is an essential part of the treatment that helps you identify the root causes of addiction.

If your loved one is abusing painkillers, you should talk to them about getting help for painkiller abuse.

Addiction treatment is the best option to fully address all areas of addiction and improve treatment outcome.Call an addiction helpline in the UK and a drug counsellor will help you find a treatment centre that caters to your unique addiction needs.

FAQs

What is the most important information I should know about painkillers?

Morphine, Vicodin, Oxycontin and Codeine are some of the most abused painkillers

You can get addicted to painkillers even with a prescription

Where can I get more information?

The UK NHS has a list of places where you can find help. Talk to your GP about your problem and they might recommend a treatment option. If you’re not comfortable speaking to your GP about addiction, call an addiction helpline and a drug counsellor will answer your questions.

Are there any home remedies for getting clean safely?

To prevent dehydration, drink plenty of fluids during withdrawal. There are medicines that treat specific withdrawal symptoms such as diarrhoea, flu, body pain and nausea. Some studies suggest that herbal tea and acupuncture might reduce discomfort during withdrawal.

What recoveryprogramme is right for me?

The right recovery programme should cater to your unique addiction needs. Mild addicts who don’t have any mental or physical health issues could benefit from an outpatient programme. If you’re a long-term substance abuser, have medical conditions and/or mental health disorders that need to be addressed in treatment, register as an inpatient.

What are the options if you don’t have insurance?

If you don’t have insurance you can pay for addiction treatment with your credit card, retirement funds or take out a home equity loan. Alternatively, you could seek government assistance via the NHS, ask for financial support from loved ones, use crowdfunding to raise money or attend a state-run programme (usually free but with a long waiting list).

What is apainkillers “high” like?

The effect of the “high” causes every part of your body to feel relaxed from your eyes, muscles and your mind. Your reaction time is slowed and you feel happy, calm and euphoric.

Why do people start taking painkillers?

Most individuals begin with a legitimate prescription. It is prescribed for muscle pain, cancer pain, post-surgery pain and body pain.

How are painKillersused and abused?

You abuse painkillers when you take them in any way not prescribed by your doctor. Recreational users crush the tablet to snort, chew, smoke or inject the substance directly into the bloodstream.

What are the practical dangers of painkillers use?

Painkillers are harmful when abused. Dangers include a high risk of overdose, damaged intestinal tract, liver and kidney failure, heart attack and contracting blood-borne diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis.

What are the options for painkillers detox?

Options for detox include medically-supervised detox and home detox. If you want to detox at home, be prepared for uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms and use the tapering process to gradually reduce your regular intake. Have someone close by to supervise you and ensure you don’t harm yourself during detox.

Is it possible to avoid addiction and rehab?

What if painkilleraddiction goes untreated?

Most of the long-term effects of painkiller addiction occur when addiction goes untreated. Withdrawal symptoms are also more difficult and you’ll require longer rehab stays to reverse the effects of the addiction.

How does going to treatment for painkilleraddiction aid in recovery?

By going to rehab, you improve your chances of maintaining lifelong abstinence from drugs, which is the goal of every addiction treatment. You gain a unique insight into your addiction that helps you understand why you abused painkillers and learn how to cope with triggers without abusing substances.

Does insurance generallycover painkilleraddiction rehab?

Yes. Painkiller addiction is recognised in the DMV. So, your medical insurance should cover either full or partial cost of rehab treatment. Your insurer will be able to provide more detailed information on What you’re eligible for.

Do controlling parents increase children’srisk of addiction?

Many children are under a lot of stress at home from controlling parents who push them to attain a certain level of perfection that prevents them from experiencing happiness on their own terms. When young teenagers fail to live up to expectations, parentsmay withhold their love. Children who grow up in these environments might turn to easily accessible painkillers to cope with feelings of isolation, depression and self-esteem.

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